The New York City Marathon—and its accompanying Dash to the Finish Line 5K held the day before the marathon—had a combined 58,852 finishers in 2022, making it the largest race weekend in the U.S. last year.
That’s according to a report by race registration platform RunSignup, which lists the top 100 American races by finishers, according to publicly available results data.
The Chicago Marathon and its 5K ranked second, with a combined 42,784 finishers in 2022. The Peachtree Road Race, a 10K on July 4 in Atlanta, had 34,877 finishers, putting it third on the list of largest American races.
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Walt Disney World Marathon weekend (with a marathon, half, 10K, and 5K), the Boston Marathon and 5K, and Rock ’n’ Roll Las Vegas (half marathon, 10K, and 5K) were fourth through sixth.
Bolder Boulder in Colorado, Disney’s Princess Half Marathon in Orlando, the NYC Half, and the Wine & Dine Half Marathon weekend, also in Orlando, rounded out the top 10.
In 100th place? That was the Houston Turkey Trot 5K, with 6,072 finishers, up from 2019, when 4,339 finished the event.
Most races are still not back to prepandemic numbers. Of the top 100, only 11 of those grew from their 2019 participation numbers. In the top 10, only the New York City Marathon grew in 2022 compared to 2019. It was up by almost 10 percent.
But Eric Cone, RunSignup’s vice president of strategic business development, is bullish on races in 2023. For one thing, races have worked through almost all of the backlog of deferred entries from canceled events in 2020 and 2021. Many runners who had signed up for a race in 2020 and had their entries rolled over for two years until 2022 were no-shows on the day of the race, which held down finisher numbers in 2022, he said.
Cone said registration numbers for 2023 events through RunSignup have been strong through the first two months of this year. He expects 2023 participant totals will still be down between 5 and 10 percent from 2019, but well up from 2022.
One area of concern, however: Fewer people signing up for road races who are 30 or younger.
“Of the biggest road races, in 2013 and 2014, about 35 percent of participants were 30 years old or younger,” Cone said. “Now that has dropped, on average, to under 20 percent.”
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
